Joe's TV List Acts All Goofy and Stuff

#27: Leave It to Beaver
(CBS, 1957-1958; ABC, 1958-1963)

Leave It to Beaver is like Everybody Loves Raymond in reverse. Where the latter show sort of ignores the kids in its detailed profile of a marriage, everything we know about June and Ward Cleaver relates to their dealings with Beav and Wally. We know nothing, really, of their relationship with each other. It’s never even clear what Ward does for a living. That’s not a flaw; it’s actually one of the small, brilliant details of one of the most sharply written shows in TV history, one that never forgets that its stories are always told from a child’s perspective – and isn’t the adult world always a bit hazy through those eyes? Leave It to Beaver was nothing if not sly – it dwelled firmly in the conformist ’50s, where moral lessons could be effectively imparted with a stern stare from Dad (you’ll notice that Beav was always worried about getting “clobbered,” but Ward only lectured). Yet, it occasionally wove topics like divorce into the threads of petty misbehavior that framed most episodes – not to mention the show’s groundbreaking portrayal of the toilet, which had been one of the weirder TV taboos; doesn’t every house have one? Certain friends called me the Beav in college, as I was the youngest of the group. I was probably as naïve as Theodore, but I got into less trouble. Come to think of it, you can’t get much duller than that. No wonder Meredith Vieira keeps rejecting my advances.